


Here There Be Monsters

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Series: Charlie Verse! [9]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Kid Fic, M/M, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6542074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Simmons lives through this just fine, fyi.</p></blockquote>





	Here There Be Monsters

Sarge gets the call from Grif around dinner time.

It’s a sign something is truly wrong because Grif never calls, not if he can’t help it. That responsibility is usually handed over to Simmons, because Simmons can handle Sarge screaming in his ear about orders right off the bat. When Sarge sees Grif’s name on his caller I.D, he’s almost positive that either Simmons or Lauren has borrowed his phone at first, just because of the irregularity.

Then he picks up and Grif starts talking.

“Simmons is in the hospital.”

Something must have shown on Sarge’s face because after taking one look at him. Emily dropped the cheese grater and went straight to get the car keys.

Grif explains it in as few words as possible. Faulty wiring. Missed it on the last appointment. The rest comes out in a series of yes and no questions, both by Sarge and Emily. Yeah, it caused a heart attack. Yes, he’s going to need a full transplant. Yes, the specialists have already been called. No, his chances of making it aren’t great.

“Look,” Grif says sounding oh so tired. “I’m staying here for the night, but Lauren needs to go somewhere. If she stays here, she’s gonna explode, and right now, I can’t handle that shit. And you guys live closest to the hospital so if-”

“She can stay,” Emily says, grabbing the phone. “It’s not problem, Captain Grif-”

“Doctor Grey how many times have I told you I’m not a Captain anymore?”  

“Around the same amount of times I’ve told you to start calling me Emily.”

The conversation wraps up quickly after that. Sarge isn’t allowed to drive unless the car has a gun on it (it’s complicated) so Emily is the one who drives in the trek up to the hospital. When they get there, Lauren is waiting outside, Donut waiting next to her.

“Sarge,” Lauren says, that usual spunk gone. “Aunt Grey.”

“Let us know if something happens,” Grey says to Donut as Lauren gets into the car. Donut nods, a fake smile plastered on his face.“We’ll be here in a jiffy!” And with that, they’re off.

The entire drive home, Lauren is silent.

* * *

Sarge meets his Grand Daughter a week and a half after Grif and Simmons start fostering her.

Grif doesn’t tell him until he leads her up to the house where Sarge lives, the little girl following him up the main path while she holds onto Simmons’ hand. She’s not dressed up for the occasion, wearing a pair of worn overalls, and when Sarge spots her behind Grif, he can’t help the smile that lights up on his face.

“Don’t even get started,” Grif says when he meets Sarge at the front door. Simmons and the girl are still at the front of the driveway, Simmons trying to corral the little girl away from Sarge’s floating mailbox. “We’re fostering her for a month till she can find another place. It isn’t set in stone.”

In response, Sarge calls for Emily to get his “World’s Best Grandpa” mug.

It seems his passive-aggressive warfare has finally paid off.

“Sarge,” Simmons says when he reaches the door. He’s finally pulled the little girl away from the inventions littering the lawn. “This is Lauren.”

Lauren looks up at him. She looks a lot like Grif’s sister, Sarge thinks. He wonders if Grif did her ponytails. “Your name is Sarge?”

Sarge grins wide. Questioning the world; first sign of a potential Red recruit. “Damn right it is. And this is the lovely Doctor Grey,” he adds as Emily appears in the doorway, holding his mug filled to the brim with the best coffee in Chorus.

“Hello!” Emily gives the little girl a wave. “I like your hair!” A timer goes off from the lab and she makes a loud squeal. “Oh! The tests are done! I’ll be right back!”

She will not be right back. Sarge knows her by now; she’ll be deep into whatever she’s discovered until someone drags her out of it. It’s part of the reason he likes her. He bends down to look the kid right in the eye. The freckles on her face remind him of Simmons, but the brown eyes remind him of Grif. “Have either of these two told you the glorious victory of the Red Army during the great mutant lobster war?”

Grif groans. “Please don’t corrupt our foster kid-”

It’s too late. Lauren’s eyes grow wide. “There was a lobster war?”

“You bet there was!” He glares up at Grif. “What you doing letting this girl not know the proud history of Red team! Have you no pride?!” He stands up and opens the door wide. “Follow me and I’ll tell you what you need to know. I promise, its top secret.”

As Lauren follows him inside he hears Grif turn to Simmons and say one thing.

“I told you this was a bad idea.”

* * *

Lauren doesn’t say much through most of dinner.

It’s a hopeless cause off the bat, the fifteen year old silent and sullen at best. She stares off into the distance for most of their idle conversation, and when she eats, it’s almost robotic. Even when they bring up Charlie, one of the teens favorite topics, she won’t bring up more than a word in response.

Shell shocked, Sarge’s mind supplies after years of living with Grey. He expected that. But the numb look-

Well, it’s something worrisome.

“What’s wrong with the munchkin?” Sarge asks Emily after dinner. She has a better idea of the situation than he does, still texting Donut for updates on exactly what happened. Sarge is smart, but when it comes to medical jargon, she’s the best translator. “Mean sides the obvious.”

Emily looks at him and sighs. “You mean psychologically?” Sarge nods. “I can’t give you an answer without a full write up and analysis-”

“Em,’” Sarge says. “I’m talkin’ the simple version. Without all the mumbo jumbo.”

Emily puts her hand on his shoulder. “Grif says she found him. Simmons. Apparently she was the one who drove him to the E.R.”

The puzzle pieces settle in easy. It’s not rocket science. He knows what Lauren probably thought on entering that room. He’s dealt with it himself. So has Emily. And Grif.

It’s hard to not see the worst when you’re used to everyone dying around you in a moment.

“Aw shit,” Sarge says. Emily just nods.

“I concur.”

* * *

When Sarge was 38, his squad of Hell Jumpers was killed in front of him in a mission gone wrong.

When Grif was 19, his squad would be killed while he was sleeping in an invasion none of them saw coming.

When Lauren was five, her entire village of refugees was killed while she was off in the forest looking for rocks.

Sarge does not figure the last part out until Lauren is seven.

It’s a surprise when it comes, even though he should have seen the evidence beforehand. Lauren has always been wary of the gun cases locked up around the house. And her fear of loud noises (when she wasn’t directly causing them that is) was something he’d noticed whenever a beaker got smashed in the lab. But he’d never thought more of it than childhood skittishness. It is only when an small explosion goes off in the lab, unplanned and unwarned, that he realizes there might be something more at play.

Because Lauren starts screaming and she does not stop.

It catches them all off guard. One moment she’s standing in the living room, watching television, the next moment she’s curled up in a ball on the floor, hands over her ears, screaming as loud as she can muster. Sarge rushes over, convinced she’s hurt herself on something, but when he finds no skinned knees or bruises, he finds himself at a loss.

“Squirt,” he says, shaking her shoulder. It’s a silly nickname, but he’s a Grandpa now; he’s allowed silly nicknames. When she doesn’t respond, he tries again. “Squirt come’on.” The screaming does not stop, her hands clamped so tightly over her ears that Sarge is sure trying to pull them away will cause more harm than good. “Squirt, what’s wrong-”

That’s when Emily enters the room and runs right up to them, down on her knees in a moment. The way her shoulders are set reminds him of a time when a bomb was more likely to be heard than birds in the morning. When she speaks, it’s with her Doctor voice.

“Lauren,” Emily says. Her voice is low and calm, but loud enough to be heard over the screaming. “You’re okay. It was just a little mess up in the lab. Everything is okay.”

The screaming tapers off, but Lauren starts biting her lower lip so hard she might break the skin. Her hands don’t move from her ears. When she breaths, it’s a strangled thing. It reminds Sarge of Simmons, back after Charon when he thought Grif was hurt bad again and-

Wait. Sarge knows what this is. Emily taught him the name a year back, but he never got around to remembering it. He just knows he’s seen it before. Just not in someone so young.

“Breathe along to the sound of my voice-” Emily instructs. Lauren follows along and after what seems like an age, her hands fall away from her ears. When she opens her eyes, they’re red with tears. Emily smiles brightly at her.

“Feeling better?” She asks. Lauren nods, terribly quiet. “I’m sorry we scared you.” She stands up and offers Lauren a hand. “Want cookies?”

Sarge loves his wife dearly, but not so much that he’s unaware that Emily’s cookies are terrible.  So when Lauren just follows along into the kitchen for burnt monstrosities, its sign enough that he’s missing part of this puzzle.

He’s always hated missing something.

Simmons is the one who explains, when they come to pick Lauren up later. When Grey tells the former solider what happened, Simmons lets out a sigh. Sarge doesn’t wait a single second to ask him every question in the book.

This is what he learns: before living with Grif and Simmons, Lauren was a essentially a foster child in a camp of Armonia refugees turned settlers. Said camp settled near a group of hiding pirates. Within a month of settling, Lauren went off into the woods without permission to go look for rocks and took a nap there.

When she came back, everyone was dead.

“Grif gets her,” Simmons says, his gaze on Lauren. She’s chattering with Emily in the kitchen, enthusiasm back, like this afternoon never happened. “Kimball says giving her to us was random, but I’m pretty sure she knew they had that in common. Thought he’d understand, I guess.” Simmons runs his hand through his hair. “At least, he understands better than me.”

Sarge wonders what either of them would say if he told them that he understood them too.

* * *

Lauren explodes at two in the morning.

Sarge is the first up when he hears a fist meet the wall. Emily stirs as well, her black hair messy from tossing and turning, and when she tries to get up, Sarge grabs her shoulder.

“I got this one.”

Emily looks at him and tilts her head. “You sure?”

Sarge shoots her the toothy smile she’s often claimed to have first fallen in love with. “I get her, remember? Don’t worry, little lady.”

Emily’s face softens. Out of everyone, she knows about the Hell Jumpers, the mission gone wrong. Which means, this time, she knows to take his lead.

“Alright. Call if there’s trouble.”

And with that, Sarge heads for the guest room.

It’s not really a guest room, not anymore. While the other Reds, Charlie and Junior have stayed in it on occasion, it is really Lauren’s where it counts. She’s put too much work into decorating it for it not to be. When Sarge enters the room, he’s thankful to find that all the pictures she’s hung up over the years are intact, as well as the basic lab equipment they keep in on top of the lone desk. He’s less thankful to find Lauren in the corner, punching the wall with bloody fists.

“Squirt,” he says, rushing over. The childhood nickname still catches her attention and he takes the moment she stops punching to drag her away from the wall. As soon as he can manage it, he’s pressing one of the guest sheets to her bloody knuckles. Emily might have to patch them up. When she struggles to go back to punching the wall, he grabs her shoulder to hold on. “Oh no, squirt. No wall punching. Red Team rules; only punching Blues! And Grif!”

Lauren isn’t looking at him. “Dad punches the wall. Both of them.”

“That’s cus Grif is a traitor to Blue code! And Simmons, as team cyborg, has dibs on fighting any inanimate objects.” He lifts the sheet from her knuckles and is happy to see the bleeding isn’t as bad as it looked. “Now mind tellin’ me what this wall said to deserve such a pure Red beatdown.”

Lauren shifts on one foot to the other. The anger is still there, he can see it how she’s shaking, but she’s not struggling anymore, so that’s an improvement. “I was mad. And it looked punchable.”

Sarge supposes she’s right on that; walls are indeed punchable. But he decides to focus on the former statement. “You were mad. At who?”

This time Lauren looks at him. Her eyes are red.

“Come’on, Squirt,” Sarge says. “Captain’s orders. Now who you mad at?”

“Me.”

Sarge knows the answer should catch him by surprise. But it doesn’t. Not to someone who knows what it’s like to be where she’s standing. “And why are you mad at yourself?”

Lauren’s reply is quite. She’s not looking at him again.  

“Didn’t quite hear that.”

"Cus-” More mumbling.

Gotta speak up-”

Because this always happens to me!” Lauren’s shout echoes through the house. Her hands are in fists again, torn away from the blanket, and Sarge hopes they don’t start bleeding again. “Everytime! Everyone! First my parents, in Armonia! Then the town! And now-” She grits her teeth. “Now-” She takes a deep breath and when she speaks next, Sarge can hear the start of waterworks coming with the tremor in her voice. “I thought he was dead. When I walked in. At least, till I checked for a pulse. And you know what I thought-”

Sarge has an idea. “What?”

Lauren meets his gaze once more. Tears are rolling down her face, big fat ugly tears. She cries like her parents, all right. And Red team. They’ve always been the team of ugly criers.

“Serves me right, for thinking I could keep something.”

And there it is. The damn breaking at once. She curls in on herself, sobbing, and Sarge is quick to guide her to the floor and wrap her into a hug.

“Why do I lose everything?” she says between sobs. “Everything.”

Sarge closes his eyes. He wants to tell her Simmons will be fine, that the worst won’t happen, but he knows that useless, not when someone is thinking like this. So instead he thinks of a time when he felt the same, when he was so young, back when he was fresh off a mission with nothing to show for it but a dead squad. What he wished someone could have said to him.

“I ain’t going anywhere.”

Grey comes in five minutes later. 

**Author's Note:**

> Simmons lives through this just fine, fyi.


End file.
